I have had the good fortune in my life to have sampled, and become addicted, to one of the greatest dishes I have tasted in my entire long 28 year life. The South African Bunny Chow! Available in three main flavours; lamb, chicken and bean. And two sizes; half and quarter.

I am going to give you the secret of this genius invention, so that one day, maybe you too can try and create this masterpiece for yourself. It may take many years of practise, dedication and hard work, but I have faith in you, dear reader, and I will pray for you and your efforts.

Okay, first of all you must buy a full loaf of bread, not sliced, otherwise you will end up with the messiest food…ever. It must be whole, but white or brown, well, I have only ever seen it done with white loaves. That doesn’t mean to say that you also must use white. If you are a health freak, err, I mean, concerned about your health, than by all means you can use brown or whole wheat. It is not a problem.

Next, you must cut the loaf according to the size you wish to serve. Cut the loaf in half to make the Half Bunny, or cut off a quarter piece to make the Quarter Bunny. It is entirely up to you. One thing you must keep in mind however, is that one loaf of bread will make 2 Half Bunny’s, but not 4 Quarter Bunny’s. The reason for this is that you need the crust end of the loaf of bread to act as your Bunny base. The middle portions of the loaf can not serve this purpose. Are you with me? Okay, good, let us move swiftly on.

Lets say we have chosen the Half Bunny. Stand the loaf with the crust side down. Now from the top, which should be pure soft bread, using your hand, reach into the loaf and roughly remove the majority of bread innards. Keep this to one side as this will act as your lid and a edible tool with which to attack your feast.

Good, so you will now have a near enough hollow half loaf of bread with the insides kept to one side. This is the essence of the Bunny Chow. Next you will need to choose your filling. Lamb, chicken or bean. Please note that these fillings are all Indian style curry’s. I for one, do not know how to make these curry’s. My mum does this part for me as she is a world leader in the kitchen. If there were a Nobel prize awarded to kitchen expertise, my mum would be well up there in the nominees!

Now my brownie points are earned for plugging mum’s cooking, we can go on. As I was saying, your filling will be one of these three curry’s. Having said that, these are usually the fillings that are offered when buying the Bunny in South Africa. For you to construct your own, I am sure that you can play around with the fillings, but make sure that it is a spicy curry to get a realistic Bunny taste. The curry recipe will be available somewhere online, or you can usually get them ready made at supermarket deli counters, or if worse comes to worst, then those ready made frozen dishes, but that is a scenario I don’t want to envisage right now. It depresses me so lets say that you make your own and it tastes fan-bloody-tastic. Don’t make it too runny though.

You should now have your hollow loaf of bread, the scooped out insides, and the curry filling of your choice. All you do now is pour in the steaming hot curry into the loaf of bread half an inch from the top, cover with the bread that you earlier had removed, and serve. It is as easy as that.

The way to eat, is to break off portions of your bread lid, use it to grab some delicious curry and plonk into your salivating mouth. Absolutely gorgeous. The curry will soak into the bread but wont soak through the crusted shell. So once your lid is finished, you begin to break off portions of the shell to eat with the curry or even on its own, simply working your way down until it is finished.

A Half Bunny is usually good for two people. The good thing being that a person can sit on either side of the Bunny, and as you are eating with your hands, you can eat at the same time. Or not, if your friend has the hygiene of a sick badger that lives in the gutters leading out to the Thames. It is all up to you.

And finally, if you are ever in the vicinity of Sparks Road, in Durban, South Africa, just ask anyone for Sunrise Takeaways. They are the all time greats of the Bunny Chow, their Lamb Bunny is unbeatable.

God bless and may you always have your taste buds tickled into the heavens.